5 Reasons Why Zombies Would Fail at Causing Apocalypse​

​1. Nature is Smarter Than Zombies

AKA:

1. Zombies Don’t Make Any Damn Sense

It’s time someone told you… If you haven’t figured this out from the rest of the list, here it is plainly: zombies make absolutely no sense. At all. First,

A. Brains, brains, BRAINS! Whether you’re a living human or a zombie, it’s your brain that determines whether or not you are alive, or undead, respectively. If literally any other single thing goes wrong with the body, we can fix it, given the right circumstances. Many people live their lives with iron lungs, prosthetic arms (or no limbs at all!), and plastic stomach bags that they poop out of. But if you’re brain’s gone, you’re gone, and no one can fix it. Remember the only way to kill a zombie? It’s, “removing the head or destroying the brain,” because it’s the brain keeping the zombie “alive”. So then, what’s keeping the zombie’s brain alive, huh? HUH, ZOMBIE ENTHUSIASTS? The brain needs oxygen and nutrients to live. How does the brain get nutrients if the stomach is dead? How does the brain get oxygen if the lungs are filled with post-mortem fluids? How could oxygen and nutrients be carried to the brain through the bloodstream anyway when all the blood is coagulated? And this is all assuming the classic, “hand-reaching-up-from-the-ground-in-a-graveyard” zombie, while ignoring the glaring fact that even freshly dead people are dead because their brain is. Once the heart stops beating, your entire brain is dead in about 5 minutes. So if you’re a zombie, you’re not, because your brain is already dead. Even if you are bitten while your brain is still alive, if you become the textbook, rotting zombie then all the stuff your dead body does (as described above) will soon kill your brain for you. As you can see, the main problem with zombies is that their own definition betrays them into fail-sauce. But then, how does one define a zombie? Regrettably, this means I am now faced with the toilsome and stupid madness of nailing down the definition of an absurdly fictitious creature that can and will never exist. On the plus side, I do like to piss people off when they’re being stupid, like when they think that their made-up nerd-knowledge of impossible things is superior to other people’s made-up nerd-knowledge of impossible things. But yeah, leave it to the ADHD kid to postpone defining zombies until the end of his zombie article. Also, I’m now making a list in a list, in a list. God, this is stupid…

A1. Living Zombies. Some people, specifically pop-culture-obsessed nerds like me (only worse at debates), argue that you can still call something a zombie even if it isn’t dead or resurrected from the dead (undead). Fortunately, this argument is dumb, and it proves that being a nerd doesn’t make you less of an idiot than other people. Living zombies occur in 2 distinct real-life ways that we already have words for (oh God, another sub-list! IT’S A SUB-SUB-SUB-LIST!):

A1a. Drugged. (As seen in The Serpent and the Rainbow.) The term “zombie” comes from African Voodoo legends and later from the Haitian witch-doctors who use powdered pufferfish-toxin cocktails to create hypnotized drug-slaves who raise from a death-like state (but not death) to do, you know, slave stuff. They are far too slow-moving and docile to cause apocalypse, and are obviously not the apocalypse-monsters we are referring to as zombies in this article, and are, also obviously, more accurately described by other terms (roofied) to still be referred to as “zombies”, a word that already has far too many meanings. Nerds take note: unless you are purposely trying to confuse people, please refer to this definition by the phrase, “Haitian zombies”, from now on.

A1b. Diseased. (As seen in 28 Days Later.) Diseases like rabies do not bring you back from the dead or cause any part of you to keep functioning after death, but they do alter your state of mind and can make you act “zombie-like”, but you wouldn’t call someone in this state a zombie unless you are either speaking metaphorically or out of your ass.

Hopefully, all you “Living Zombie” theorists can now see that your argument is poo poo and SHUT THE EFF UP ALREADY.

A2. Undead (Actual) Zombies. Undead zombies are individuals who rise from the dead by one of two means:

A2a. Scientifically. (As seen in Resident Evil.) Scientifically Undead Zombies are people who, despite being dead, continue to walk and moan and, to prevent an otherwise really boring movie, bite the hell out of people, all by scientific, natural means. They are also impossible, as you have seen already described earlier in this article, unless I have bored you into a zombie-like state yourself and you missed it, sorry. This is the basis for almost all true zombie movies and the basis of this article, as it is one of only two true definitions of zombie, the other being:

A2b. Supernaturally. (As seen in Army of Darkness.) As a Christian, it’s kind of against my religion to argue with the supernatural. And, as kind of a personal rule of mine, the second you introduce supernature into an argument, you pretty much win. For example, if a movie says, “The T-Virus brings already rotten corpses back to life,” you can say, “That doesn’t make any sense,” but if a movie says, “Read this incantation from the Book of the Dead and the dead will rise from their graves and a time-warp will form around your Oldsmobile and Kristen Stuart will be born,” who the hell are you to say it can’t happen?

A3. Alcoholic Zombies.

A3a. The Drink. (As seen in Mixology 101 training videos.)

2 oz light rum

1 oz dark rum

1/2 oz 151 proof rum

1/2 oz apricot brandy

1 oz pineapple juice

1 oz orange juice

1 oz lime juice

1 tsp sugar

Stir all ingredients together EXCEPT the 151 proof rum, which gets floated on top, and pour over ice in, like, one of those big, collectible restaurant glasses you got from Planet Hollywood or somewhere. Garnish with fruit and enjoy, responsibly, which brings us to:

A3b. Over 140,000,000 People Worldwide. (As seen in and out of AA meetings all over the world.) A more contemporary version of the Haitian zombie defined in A1a. Much more likely than all other definitions of zombie to cause apocalypse.

So you see, there’s a reason George Romero, the inventor of the “modern-day zombie” (Zombie A2), avoids explaining the reanimation of corpses like he avoids making movies about singing puppies. In order for something like zombies to ever possibly exist, you’d have to change the very definition of "zombie," and then you’re not really talking about zombies at all, unless… after killing you, the zombie virus immediately begins regeneration of your cells, preventing all the decomposing and post-mortem stuff that makes it impossible to be alive, making you not really undead, but sort-of changed into some other living thing (Ok, pretty much the Diseased definition from A1b, but whatever.), whose brain is still alive (well, alive again) but stripped of all humanity, leaving only basic needs like feeding and reproduction. (Creepy. Also, the only "true zombie" scenario that makes sense [besides A2b], except that they’re kind of not zombies anymore but diseased people... wait, no, it totally works. See? 'Cause they technically did die and then regenerated back to life, so they are "reanimated," just not rotting because of the regeneration, so, more like the pod-people from Body Snatchers, but yeah... Right? Regardless, I just won. Or maybe I didn't. Damn it! Zombies suck the reason out of everything!) Anyway, this definition of "zombie" means that the mind is gone completely, apart from the need to spread the virus, probably by biting, turning the infected into mindless, limping, moaning, bitey things in which case, we already have a word for that, too:

B. Retarded. I’m not trying to be insensitive to the mentally handicapped, they deserve to be treated as humanely as you or me, but I am saying this: I do not fear their uprising. I refuse to be apocalypsed by a race of being that can neither tie it’s shoes nor microwave potatoes. That’s effing dumb. Even if zombies were an evolutionary phenomenon, they would be totally unequipped to usurp us as the dominant species or even survive at all with us humans as a rival. If anything, you’d have bleeding-hearts all over the media lobbying for zombie rights and putting out sappy public service announcements to find a cure for our “undead brothers and sisters.”

Think about it. There’s a reason the mentally impaired are called handicapped: because they can’t take care of themselves (or violently cannibalize the human race) without our help. Now ask yourself, “If retarded were contagious, and the developmentally disabled outnumbered the rest of us 10 to 1 (and were violent), what would really happen? Would they overthrow us and take over as the dominant race or species or whatever? Would we be helpless against their limping, aimless numbers? Defenseless against their inability to figure out how childproof doorknob covers work?” Ask it! ASK IT! The conclusion you should inevitably reach is, “No, we are in no danger of becoming extinct at the gentle, T. rex-postured hands of the mentally disabled, with or without reasonable accommodation.” If you do not reach this conclusion, click here to test how likely you are to have autism. No, the macabre ending of this disturbing scenario would, in reality, be a lot of mentally crippled humans dying of their own accord and not enough mentally sound humans to help them. To be fair, the virus would be much harder to stop, as long as it doesn’t turn you all corpsey (and, therefore, into an actual zombie) as you would still be recognized as human. And most of us, when loved ones are sick and need us the most, would have a tendency to stay well within biting distance of them. But our species has already survived plenty of epidemics and pandemics in the past, thanks to quarantines and organizations like the DHHS and the CDCDH; there’s no reason this one would be any different. It definitely wouldn’t lead to apocalypse. As it turns out, a contagious, debilitating mental illness isn’t scary, just really, really sad. And frankly, in writing this, I’ve found that even talking about retardeds vs. mentally capable humans in an apocalyptic death-match for survival of the species is just morbid. It’s sick, SICK, I TELL YOU! And worse, it’s causing me to sympathize with zombies and making me feel terrible about all the mean things I’ve said about them in this article. I hope you all are as ashamed for reading this as I am for writing it. I feel dirty. Um, here, support autism awareness. So there you have it. Zombies are clearly no match for humans with guns, or humans without guns, or exposure, or banana peels, or their own definition. Even if your zombie virus is some sort of humanly-engineered, weaponized nanobot cyborg virus, like the one real-life scientists are currently trying to wipe out humanity with, the virus couldn’t survive without the body, and turning people into drooling retards isn’t going to get it anywhere, either. That concludes my list (and my sub-lists [and sub-sub-lists (and even my sub-sub-sub-lists [and so on])]) about why zombies would suck at causing apocalypse, in case you forgot what this article was supposed to be about, like I did. I hope you enjoyed reading the most depressing humor article you’ve probably ever come across. Now go help some disabled people.